Merrily Late in the Night
by BellatrixCrucioYou
Summary: Late night duties for the Head Boy and Girl get them both into the spirit of Christmas, and may finally bring them together.


**A/N: Hello, everyone! I present to you another Lily and James one-shot. Hopefully this gets you all into the Christmas spirit! Enjoy and please leave a review. That can be your Christmas present to me. ;)**

"_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Let your heart be light_

_From now on_

_Our troubles will be out of sight_

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Make the Yule-tide gay_

_From now on our troubles will be miles away."_

Upon passing, the suits of armor positioned around the halls of Hogwarts would burst into song, singing their best rendition of whichever Christmas tune they could think of first. Usually Lily Evans didn't mind the singing because it helped her get into the right mood for the holiday season. Right now, however, the Head Girl was exhausted. In addition to lessons, Lily had to deal with running a prefects meeting, checking out a number of books from the library, and breaking up a fight between two pesky second year boys from Slytherin. It took her a good fifteen minutes to make them stop trying to practically murder each other. Now Lily was on her way to the Gryffindor common room to start on some homework or maybe just relax. A good nap would serve her well.

After uttering the password to the Fat Lady and scrambling through the portrait hole, Lily collapsed onto the couch nearest the fireplace and then set out her books and parchment. She highly doubted she'd get much further than one assignment. Not even one probably. It was without a doubt that when she opened her Transfiguration book, she didn't have much longer. Her eyelids threatened her vision after a mere five minutes. Next thing she knew, the words on the book were gone and the fire next to her disappeared from view…

"Evans…hey, Evans!" Someone was attempting to wake the red head from her slumber. She was apparently in a deep sleep.

"Evans!" He prodded her on the shoulder and she finally stirred.

"Hmm?" Lily was trying to open her eyes, but she was just so comfortable and content.

"Wake up. You need to help me with this," The boy said, prodding her again.

Finally, Lily opened her eyes. In front of her she saw James Potter, his hair sticking up in all directions as it usually did. That wasn't what caught her attention though. Surrounding the Head Boy were several boxes.

"What are those?" She indicated to the boxes, fully awake now.

"That's why I was trying to wake you up. You need to help me with this. Come look. It all makes sense now," James said as he lifted the box closest to him and set it on top of Lily's homework.

"What are you talking about, Potter?" Lily rose from the couch and peered inside the box which was crushing her untouched transfiguration paper.

"Christmas decorations?" Lily looked at James questioningly.

"You got it, Evans. Doesn't it all make sense now?"

"Erm…no?" Lily had no idea what he was getting at.

"You know how there's always a Christmas tree put up in the common room? How there's garland? How there's mistletoe? It always gets put up sometime in the night. Or so it seems. Who do you think gets all the decorations up?"

He waited a minute for Lily to answer as she contemplated his words in her mind.

"The Head Boy and Girl do, don't they?" Lily concluded.

"Right again! Always so bright, aren't you?" James smirked at her.

"So we wait until everyone goes to bed and then decorate the room for Christmas?"

"Maybe not as bright as I thought…No. Lily. I don't know if you've looked at the time recently, but it's about one o'clock in the morning. Everyone's already in bed," James said as his smirk grew.

"Well how should I know that since I've been sleeping myself?" Lily challenged. She wasn't angry though.

"A fair point."

They just stared at each other for what seemed like decades, but in reality only a few seconds. Lily was in awe at James's nerves. He did have nerves. Nerves for waking her up at one o'clock in the morning to decorate for Christmas when all she wanted to do was snuggle up in a warm blanket and sleep for the next week.

"Potter, do we really have to do this tonight?" Lily asked, not a trace of enthusiasm in her voice at the prospect of the task at hand.

"Yes," James said.

"Let's just do it tomorrow night. I'm too tired."

"We can't. I already dragged all of the boxes here. I can't take them back to Dumbledore now. I can't just leave them here either because people will see them in the morning." James sighed.

"Alright, alright. I'll help you decorate. Let me at least go change into pajamas first," Lily said, becoming aware that she was still dressed in her school uniform. James was wearing a quidditch t-shirt and green plaid pajama pants.

"I'll be waiting."

Lily hurried up the girls' staircase and into her dormitory. All of her dorm mates were sound asleep. Digging through her dresser, she found her favorite Christmas jumper. She threw it on with a pair of leggings and departed, making sure she didn't wake any of the girls when she closed the door. When Lily returned she saw James extracting a fake tree from the longest box.

"I always knew the tree in here was fake…" he mumbled to himself.

"I'm ready to help now," Lily said to announce her presence.

"You can sift through the ornament box if you'd like," James said, gesturing to a box to his left.

"Sure."

"Cute jumper," James said, attempting to keep his tone friendly.

"Thanks. It's my favorite for the season actually," Lily said. She turned her back, pretending to look through the box, hiding the grin that formed on her face.

James didn't say anything. He was concentrating on standing the tree straight without it falling over. Then, as if suddenly realizing his stupidity, grabbed his wand out of his pocket and waved it, setting the tree right.

"Hey! No magic! We're doing this the Muggle way," Lily said, standing up straight with her hands on her hips. Her glare was enough for James. He stowed his wand back into his pocket and continued the rest by hand.

"That's better," Lily said, her sweet tone returning. "We need Christmas music though."

Before James could say a word, she dashed up the stairs again. The Head Boy started detangling the lights. The knot was giving him quite the hard time, but he persisted, not taking his wand out to cheat.

Lily returned with a vinyl by her favorite group, Liquid Luck.

"Here we go…" James watched as the red head wandered over to the record player that Remus Lupin had placed on the corner side table back in their fourth year. As the lead male's voice rang through the room, Lily hummed joyfully. James was still caught up in detangling lights, which was causing him much frustration. The lights seemed to be getting more tangled by the minute. To prevent getting tied up himself, James cast the lights away forcefully, leaving them lying in a messed up heap on the floor. He heard Lily's chuckle and looked up, defeated.

"I give up. I can't possibly fix the lights without magic."

"Give them here," Lily said, holding her hand out.

"Good luck," James said, tossing her the pile of lights.

While Lily worked on the lights, James took ornaments out of boxes and laid them all out carefully on the couch. When, at last, he extracted the last one, he turned back to Lily, checking her progress. He was met by a smug expression and a set of completely untwisted Christmas lights.

"How…?"

"You aren't the best at everything, you know, Potter."

"Ninety nine percent then," James said, nodding cockily.

"Think what you will. Now because I untangled these lights, you can hang them. Sounds fair if you ask me." Her tone suggested that James didn't really have a choice. James decided to take up the task with persistence in order to prove to Lily that he could decorate a tree, and decorate it well. Also to perhaps impress her with his tree lighting expertise that he wasn't positive even existed.

Lily observed James hang the multi-colored lights on the perfect looking fake tree for about three minutes before he started fuming again.

"Really, James? You can't even _hang_ the lights without magic? You are seriously pathetic," Lily said though her giggling.

"In my defense, I've never had to do this before! It's not as easy as it looks, you know!" James retaliated.

"But it is actually."

"Then why am I even helping you? Clearly you can manage perfectly fine on your own. Anything I do will look like crap anyway," James said in a reasonably upset tone.

Lily couldn't help but take some pity on the poor bloke. He was a Pureblood after all. Still, it wasn't that challenging.

"Right. Then my only other option is for you to wait until I've lit the tree and then you can hang the ornaments. That has to be the easiest job of them all. In the meantime, you can hand the garland and mistletoe. Do you think you can handle such a wearing task?"

"I swear I won't disappoint. It will be the best tree you've ever seen after I'm through putting the ornaments on," James assured her.

"It better be…for your sake, Potter."

The Head Girl and Boy went about their separate tasks, talking minimally, but singing unceasingly. Their voices clashed terribly, but neither seemed to mind. To them it was soothing. If Lily wasn't in the Christmas spirit, she certainly was now. Decorating always put had that effect.

"I'm finished, James," Lily declared some fifteen minutes later. The lights looked stunning and bright. James could never have done any better.

"They look great! Now it's my part!" James said excitedly, grabbing a handful of ornaments off the couch.

Lily eyes the rest of the room and was forced to admit that James had also done a marvelous job. The garland snaked all the way up both staircases. There was also garland on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. There were stockings hanging for nobody in particular, and mistletoe hung in all corners of the room. Lastly, red and gold candles were placed nicely around the room on side tables. How could he have done such a wonderful job with the rest of the room, but he was incapable of a simple task such as lighting a tree?

"James, it truthfully does look great in here. I must say I expected worse."

The Head Boy grinned appreciatively and responded with his thanks.

Together Lily and James hung every last ornament on the tree, added the angel on top, and adorned the entire thing with tinsel. The left over tinsel was thrown randomly around the room and at each other. It looked tacky, but Christmas wasn't the same without tinsel.

"You know what we're missing?" James asked, laughing as he shook the tinsel out of his hair.

"What's that?" Lily asked, also laughing as she picked tinsel off her sweater.

"Cookies, of course."

"You're right! How did I not think of that? You don't suppose the house elves are still awake at this hour do you?" Lily wondered.

"I doubt it. But I can sneak there and grab some…"

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Lily said hesitantly.

"Sure it is! Who's going to be roaming the castle this late? I'll take the cloak if it makes you happy," James said.

"Well…alright then. Hurry up before I change my mind."

James didn't even bother to get the cloak before he exited the common room to get them treats for their hard work. As she waited, Lily rocked out to more Christmas music, signing so loud she was surprised that nobody came down from the dormitories above. She dance din circles around the now lovely holiday filled room. She didn't stop even when James came back through the portrait hole after irritating the Fat Lady for being awaken.

"What are you doing, Lily?" James asked, a crooked grin appearing on his slightly tired, yet still handsome face.

The red head did a last spin and landed on the couch, out of breath. "Dancing," she huffed.

"You could have waited until I got back so I could join you," James said, clearly let down at her choice to not wait.

"Who said I would have danced with you though?" Lily asked playfully.

"Yeah, whatever…I brought cookies and hot chocolate," James said as he gestured to the table.

"Mmm! Thank you, sir Head Boy! It smells delicious!" Lily exclaimed. Then she gratefully dug in while James continues to smile at her.

Somehow, after her initial excitement, Lily found herself lying across the couch, crunching on the last of her delicacies. She looked at the final bit fondly before tossing it into her mouth. James sat on the end of the couch, Lily legs draping over his lap. She must have been tired agreeing to do this.

"Thanks again for the cookies, James," Lily said sleepily.

"Sure thing," James replied, exhausted as well.

Lily yawned and said, "Maybe we should head to bed."

"Best idea I've heard all day," James agreed.

Lily sat up and rose from the couch slowly. She stretched and James followed suit. Then they began trudging toward the staircases. On the way, James noticed something Lily had not. He had purposefully placed mistletoe near the stairs while decorating. He stopped in his tracks and waited for Lily to do the same.

"You coming?' she asked.

James nodded his head upward. Lily followed his gaze and James saw as her eyes grew big upon noticing the mistletoe. "James…"

"Can't deny the mistletoe, Lily."

"You can when you're standing next to a git. I swear I read that somewhere in the rules," Lily said cheekily.

"Liar," James said, stepping nearer to Lily and lightly placing his hands on her face, examining her bright green eyes.

"What do you want from me, James?" Lily asked. It was a stupid question, she knew.

"I really like you, Lily. No, I adore you. You know I have since pretty much forever." His tone was soft, yet desirous.

"I know," Lily said. Again, stupid. Why couldn't she speak properly? She no longer felt tired, instead warm and fluttery. Her and James had been involved in countless Heads duties this year and they spent an awful lot of time together. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the fact that she thought James was no longer a git, but a mature (most of the time), intelligent, and dedicated influence on the rest of the Hogwarts students. He was not the cocky boy who continually asked her out on dates, but a semi-cocky man who was worth her time. As James moved increasingly closer, Lily could see every eyelash behind his round spectacles. His hazel eyes bored into her green ones and he made her feel something. As much as she would have hated to admit it just a few months ago, that something happened to be yearning because Lily Evans did want to kiss James Potter under the mistletoe. It was the proper thing to do, the best option. Because when it came down to it, Lily knew she would regret it if she simply denied Potter like she had so many times and went to bed. She would deny not feeling his lips meet hers for the first time. Lily Evans did not want to deny any of that. She was done denying the boy who would never give up on her and who looked so bloody attractive at the moment, standing there in his plaid pajama pants and slightly too tight quidditch shirt. So Lily lifted her head slightly and kissed James.

The kiss was slow and tender. Lily had never expected anything like this when she fantasized about the moment when she would kiss James, because yes, she had played this moment out in a million different ways. Somehow none of the daydreamed scenes in her mind quite matched this feeling. Lily lifted her hands and immersed them in his untidy hair. As James deepened the kiss, Lily knew that James was pouring every ounce of previous sexual tension into it. She mimicked him, becoming aware of the chocolate taste from the cookies they'd previously ate. It was sweet and inviting. Lily thought that she could quite possibly snog James Potter for a very long time and be just fine. But much too quickly, he slowly broke away.

He was grinning like a fool who'd just received a brand new, expensive racing broom. Lily, blushing, smiled back at him.

"Happy Christmas, James Potter," Lily whispered.

"Happy Christmas," James replied.

She gave him a brief hug before ascending the steps to where her warm bed awaited.

"Goodnight, Lily," James said.

"Goodnight."

Then they both disappeared behind opposite doors and Lily couldn't remember feeling this elated during the Christmas season in a very long time. She crawled into bed and pulled the covers up high, the sound of her friends' snoring filling the silence. She couldn't wait to tell them all what happened in the morning. With satisfying thoughts to keep her company, Lily fell asleep instantly.


End file.
